Crystalline
by Rei Nokato
Summary: Starfox Adventures. Krystal's thoughts while imprisoned at the top of Krazoa Palace.


**AN:** ... Yeah. I don't know. Felt like writing this after winning Starfox Adventures again recently (I wish it was a bit more of a challenge). I heart Krystal, Fox, and Krystal/Fox.

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**CRYSTALLINE**

_Mother and Father, I swore to protect you. I failed, barely managing to escape death myself. I have moved on, but it seems I am destined to wade down this alarming mindset of loss and pessimism for the time my heart continues to beat. I would voluntarily halt its rhythm right now, if only I could._

_Mother and Father, I beg of you._

_Help._

She had forgotten the feel of gravity gluing her feet to the ground. She had lost utter sense of time; the perpetual storm pelting the surface of the rooftop, the crystal barrier surrounding her impeding the chill and replacing it with an uneasy coolness, which seemed specifically suited to her body temperature as it requested no reaction such as sweat or goose bumps.

The spirit - it was keeping her alive. The warmth experienced as that one entered her body, what felt like an outlying memory, was cherished and soothing. When it left her, floating upward to the ancient statue, making its finely carved mouth to issue a ray of light, she had wished it hadn't.

Then the winter arrived. A winter creeping from behind her, and to spin around and face the very thing that wreaked that same destruction on her home planet, the thing that killed the only family she had; it was something that had caused an eruption of terror within her, revealed in her scream as its force shoved her into the spirit's iridescent path to the centre of the Palace. It was from that moment her senses were numbed to a dull bruising and her body experienced a crushing desire to close down. She was awake and aware, yet her eyes were sealed shut against her will.

The spirit she once found to be a somewhat cushion to rest her burdened mind was a phenomena that, although it was responsible for keeping her in this state, she was in awe of for its power and hidden agenda. Had the distress signal been a calling from the spirits themselves, or was it by means of the creature that put her in this mess to begin with, luring her to the Palace for unknown reasons?

It spoke to her. She was certain the indecipherable whispers were sounds meant to console her. Perhaps this numbing was to stop latent panic to rise in her soul. A living creature, trapped in a crystal for who knows how long and what motive for was bound to suffer a ceasing of function altogether, the mind unable to cope with the idea of being stuck solitarily at the top of the Palace, below the gaze of the spirit that maintained their health for indefinite principles, surely to cause a total clemency of that life yearning for death.

One would assume a form's thoughts would spiral in the situation the young azure vixen had been sorted into. The spirits had congealed this occurrence.

It was difficult to tell now whether she was in dream or conscious of reality, frequently drifting into slumber without realising it. There was no objective in remaining alert of her condition, or heeding carefully the stifled humming of the wild atmosphere, or listening for anyone who may encounter her in the antique device.

_Is this what it feels like to be dead, your spirit's attention listlessly wandering?_

A single distinct image, burning into the back of her eyelids, thwarting the possibility of it being produced via way of her subconscious, appeared without warning amidst hazy thought. Rousing her for the first time to a chance at freedom, she pleaded to the unfamiliar profile, and to herself – to be constructive, to be determined.

To live.

Her heart's intentions echoed inexpressibly as she saw the fox react, unsettled to some extent by a faint call for aid.

As one is expected to do following a major strain on their physical stature, she grew limp subsequent to this extraordinary task and fell unconscious.

Her reflections roamed for those final few seconds with a glimmer of renewed confidence.

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End file.
